empty, vain,
The shrillest of the cackling train,
With proud and elevated crest,
Precedence claim’d above the rest.
Says she, I laugh at human race,
Who say, geese hobble in their pace;
Look here!—the sland’rous lie detect;
Not haughty man is so erect.
That PEACOCK yonder, lord, how vain
The creature’s of his gaudy train!
If both were stript, I’d pawn my word,
A GOOSE would be the finer bird.
Nature, to hide her own defects,
Her bungled work with fin’ry decks;
Were GEESE set off with half that show,
Would men admire the PEACOCK? No.

Thus vaunting, ’cross the mead she stalks,
The cackling breed attend her walks.
The SUN shot down his noontide beams,
The SWANS were sporting in the streams;
Their snowy plumes, and stately pride,
Provoke her spleen. Why, there, she cry’d,
Again what arrogance we see!
Those creatures! how they mimic me!
Shall ev’ry fowl the waters skim,
Because we GEESE are known to swim?
Humility they soon shall learn,
And their own emptiness discern.

So saying, with extended wings,
Lightly upon the wave she springs;
Her bosom swells, she spreads her plumes,
And the SWAN’S stately crest assumes.
Contempt and mockery ensu’d,
And bursts of laughter shook the flood.

A SWAN, superior to the rest,
Sprung forth, and thus the fool address’d:
Conceited thing! elate with pride,
Thy affectation all deride;
These airs thy aukwardness impart,
And shew thee plainly as thou art.
Among thy equals of the flock,
Thou hadst escap’d the public mock.
And, as thy parts to good conduce,
Been deem’d an honest hobbling GOOSE.

Learn hence to study WISDOM’S rules;
Know, foppery’s the pride of fools;
And striving NATURE to conceal,
You only her defects reveal.

FABLE VIII.

THE LAWYER AND JUSTICE.